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Orphan Black: Home Base and Primer
Mar. 15th, 2014 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silverr2x01 — Nature Under Constraint and Vexed
2x02 — Governed by Sound Reason and True Religion
2x03 — Mingling Its Own Nature With It
2x04 — Governed As It Were By Chance
2x05 — Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est
2x06 — To Hound Nature in Her Wanderings
2x07 — Knowledge of Causes and Secret Motion of Things
2x08 — Variable and Full of Perturbation
2x09 — Things Which Have Never Yet Been Done
2x10 — By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried (Season 2 FINALE)
A discussion thread for Season 1 is here.
For the BBC America schedule of this critically-acclaimed fan favorite (which made almost every TV critic's "Best of 2013" list), click here. (To see if BBC America is available from your cable provider, click here.)
BBC America has a "video recap" of Season 1 here (although it's more to refresh the memory of those who watched last year).
Finally, for an awesome discussion of just one of the reasons Orphan Black is so amazing (one of many), I refer you to this fantastic article (which was the catalyst for my own initial viewing of the show): Orphan Black flips the sci-fi script by putting female agency first
This is the homebase for Orphan Black
From left to right: Dr Leekie, Paul, Kira (seated), Rachel, Delphine, Cosima, Cal, Sarah, Felix, Alison, Donnie, Mrs. S, Art (crouching), Henrik
Orphan Black, a Canadian speculative fiction series,
airs in Canada on Space, in the US on BBC America, and in Australia on SBS2
Orphan Black has been renewed for a third season!
Factoid 1: While Season One's episode titles were taken from chapters of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Season Two's titles come from the works of Francis Bacon.
Factoid 2: Season 2 premieres on 19 April, 132 years to the day that Charles Darwin died. Intriguing coincidence ...)
Official Site
Premise
Sarah Manning, a young woman with a less-than-ideal life, witnesses the suicide of a woman who looks exactly like her. Impulsively stealing the dead woman's purse, she decides to take over her identity, only to find that she and her doppelganger are clones -- and they're not the only ones. As Sarah begins to meet up with the other clones, she discovers that there are powerful forces intent on controlling, destroying, or exploiting them.
Why Watch?
As you might guess from the cast photo, factoids, and premise, this is a smart, sexy show, driven in equal parts by plot and characterization.
"Oh, but, clones? Really? All played by the same actress? Too gimmicky!"
Most of us have had the experience of watching a movie or TV series where the special effects are so front-and-center that they keep taking you out of the story as you're watching, thinking "Wow, cool idea!" or "Wow, cool effect!" ... While there's nothing wrong with such meta-commentary, it's an exhilarating experience when the inverse happens, when the story and characters sweep you up so completely that you barely notice the SFX supporting them.
Orphan Black is that type is experience for many of its fans. While most go into it knowing it's a sci-fi thriller about clones, its "gimmick" being that they're all played by a single actress (Tatiana Maslany), by the time you see scenes that require two, three, or more of those characters on screen and interacting at the same time, it's likely that your brain has giddily suspended disbelief and will see, not a genuine marvel of acting and camera work, but distinct characters. (You'll frequently see fans saying, "I keep forgetting she plays all of them!")
Don't just take my word for it - Google Orphan Black, and you'll see dozens of "why you should be watching" type articles.
Characters
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